Interview
by IchiWaZen
Summary: "Hesitation gets you killed normally. I thought I'd be kinder." An insight into just what Natasha means when she says that she owes Clint a debt.


Yeah I know, if an interview was being conducted it probably wouldn't be Hawkeye interviewing Black Widow but I can hope ok? Of course, they're not going to be all buddy buddy in this one. Expect some animosity in this.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in The Avengers and any related movies. They belong solely to Marvel.

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"What is your name?" The archer, glanced over his case file at the poker faced woman. He mentally sighed, another spy, only god knows how hard cracking a damn spy was.

"Black Widow." She continued to give him the same steely look, the fire in her eyes almost as fierce as the color of her bright hair. Clint mentally sighed again, settling down in a chair across from her.

"Look, you know what I mean. What is your real name, not your operative." He was beginning to feel a migrane come on. Why the heck did Nick want him to do this? He'd much rather prefer to be on some kind of mission.

"Natasha." Great, excellent, finally something to work on.

"Alright then, Tasha-"

"My name is Natasha." He frowned, she wasn't making this any easier. Well then again, just a few short hours ago, he was supposed to well... kind of shoot her in the head. Not the best situation to transition from. Might as well try to not to be too Tony Stark-esque with her now.

"Okay then. _Natasha_, who do you work for?" Natasha persisted with that blank look. Clint stared back with a similar blank look. She furrowed her eyebrows a bit, not budging an inch. An actual sigh left the man's mouth and he began flipping through the case file. Brilliant, just brilliant.

A long silence blanketed the room, occasionally broken by the crisp sound of the turning pages of the file. Natasha continued to keep her steel gaze on the other spy. Clint on the other hand, seemed rather relaxed. He was sore as fuck and this whole situation was the only thing keeping him and his bed apart. He leaned back on the chair while attempting to make himself as comfortable as possible on the metallic piece of crap. A squeak came from his chair when he leaned back on it and he crossed his legs.

"Don't you know anything about being professional?" He peered over the edge of the file, looking at the woman with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm sorry, did you say something?" A look of disgust passed over her face as she repeated her statement again, though it was a bit louder and forced this time.

"Don't you know_ anything_ about being professional?" He was glad that the file was covering his mouth as a small smirk crossed his lips for a second. The case file went up again and she could hear him clearing his throat. Her expression darkened when she heard his lightly mirth laced response.

"I'll be professional when you're going to be, love." The archer heard a quiet shuffle of clothing and the light squeak of the chair when she abruptly left it. Not that he was too surprised with her reaction.

"And don't think of stabbing me, I left those knives on you to show you that we have somewhat a degree of trust in you." He looked up as he flipped another page over to see a sharp blade centimeters away from his temple. A low whistle left his lips and an equally sharp knife flipped out from his sleeve, glinting lightly.

"Attacking me wouldn't exactly help your case at any rate." His blade wiggled in the air as he shook his hand, the light catching onto the sharpened steel every so turn. The Russian huffed and concealed the knife again, taking measured steps back to her seat. Hawkeye calmly closed his own blade and slid it back into the folds of his sleeve, setting down the case file after doing so.

"You're awfully talkative for someone of our profession." She crossed her slim arms together, any hint of that former outburst hidden.

"The only reason why getting I'm talkative is because quite frankly, you're getting on my nerves."

"You knew bringing me back here would cause a lot of trouble." She was right, he did know that she would cause some trouble, but he wasn't expecting that he was the one who would have to deal with it. Coulson was definitely going to get mugged of his Captain America pillow later today.

"Why'd you do it?" Her voice was unusually softer than before, a contemplative look on her face. He thought back, back to when she saw her on the battlefield. As a spy, she was probably one of the best. Her suit provided that she would stay hidden on that battlefield, the only giveaway that flaming hair of hers. That was all he needed, a notch on his bow and the arrow was aimed at that impossibly red mane of hers. All he had to do was release and the steel tip would bury itself into her head.

Then she turned around. Even from here he could see the determination in her eyes as they looked around for a way to get to her target. Something about it made him smile a bit. It wasn't love at first sight, he knew love was for children and that statement more so. She was certainly an attractive woman but Clint had seen many attractive women, so this wasn't simple attraction. It was just something that he couldn't pinpoint.

He snapped out of his thoughts as she hesitated, the determination in her eyes being overshadowed with doubt. Doubt in what? He pondered as she ran and hid while soldiers passed by her. She continued towards the target, only her movements seemed to have less purpose almost as if she wasn't going to do it. It clicked in his head. Deflection, something about this seemed wrong to her. Likewise, the situation seemed to turn wrong for him as well. And as she got surrounded he sighed and withdrew, leaping down from his vantage point. Man, he was going to regret this later.

"What the hell is going on Barton? The order was to kill the woman, you're doing the exact opposite!" Fury's rather furious voice blared over his earphone. Oh boy, better explain things fast, no one wanted an angry director on their heels.

Clint pressed the microphone and answered quickly. "Something is wrong with the target. Possible deflection." He could hear the director's heated sigh from the other line before the volume of his voice went down.

"Alright fine, investigate. But if she's not going to possibly deflect, you're going to shoot that motherfucker alright? Understood?" The intercom squeaked at the end causing the spy inwardly wince. He gave a simple okay as a reply and continued over to the Black Widow. For someone who was in the possibility of deflecting, the way she sunk those knives into his men wasn't exacting convincing. Hawkeye gave several hand motions to the remaining men who withdrew and formed a tight circle around the redhead.

She looked over suspiciously and hunched into a fighting position, her fingers ghosting over locations where there were undoubtedly multiple weapons. He caught eyes with her and kept his gaze. The male spy raised his hands and dropped his bow and quiver of arrows, prompting several soldiers to raise their guns. He shot them all a sharp look and they went at ease.

"What do you want?" Black Widow spat out, not leaving her position. Hawkeye looked back without fear, despite his weapons being on the floor.

"A proposition. A job offer of sorts." The woman scoffed and all of the soldiers jerked back a bit.

"What makes you think that I don't already have one? What do you think I'm doing?" He could see that she had thought she had won.

"Hesitation gets you killed normally. I thought I'd be kinder." Her eyes widened only the slightest and her pose dropped. The redhead straightened up to her natural height and she eyed the soldiers around her.

"Alright, I'll see what this job offer is then." He offered her a rare smile and walked over to her.

"I apologize for this in advance."

The woman barely had a moment to respond when suddenly Hawkeye tackled her down and locked her arms behind her. She struggled and practically snarled at him, managing to elbow his jaw and drawing a grunt from him. A soldier came over with a tranquilizer dart, attempting to aim it at her. Her legs pulsed as she tried to flip the situation over but the other spy held on strongly, suffering a few more blows to his chest and jaw.

A sharp pain on the side of her neck had her snarling again, her blows more wild. "I'm going to kill you later!" It wasn't long until her struggles grew weak and her body slumped, letting the roughed up spy get some breathing room. Hawkeye measured her pulse and threw her over his shoulder, spitting out a mouthful of blood off to the side.

"Looking forward to it, Love."

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Back to reality, the look on Clint's face was grim. He really hoped that she didn't remember that part about him knocking her out. The tranquilizer was supposed to take care of that but he'd like to think that the bodies of spies worked a bit differently. Her remembering that wouldn't really help the situation.

"What is it? You haven't answered my question yet." Natasha's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. Yeah he really hoped that she didn't remember that little tidbit.

"To offer you a job proposition. My director thinks that your services would be beneficial to our operative. It's a chance to start over, in essence a clean slate." She narrowed her eyes a bit, bringing her hands up to rest her head on.

"What makes you think that I need a clean state?" He could see that despite all the time that had passed, she still considered him and S.H.I.E.L.D. to be enemies. There was nothing else he wanted to do except to just go back to his room and pass out for the rest of the day. Look, either this chick was going to let up soon or he was out. Coulson could have her, hell maybe if Fury just screamed motherfucker at her a few times she might even soften up. The tense spy sighed irritably and retorted harshly.

"How much red do you have on your life? Do you have any idea how many times you've came up in our case files? You might have hidden well for a while but it's all coming undone now. The Black Widow is a poisonous spider, but in the end you are still only a _spider_. What are you going to do when your web is done?" She glared back at him, daggers might as well have jut shot out of her eyes. The room was silent for a brief second, but hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

"What makes you think that you're the most pure here, _Mr. Barton_? I might not have the cleanest background, but yours is the most despicable. I face my sins at least, what do you do? All you do is sin from a distance. Do your targets even know who they're supposed to curse out on their descent to hell? I let them see who I am, who exactly is sending their damned souls down. I ought to clip your wings to show you exactly what I do."

"When did you realize when your sins were really sins? I'll bet that you realized it by your second mission. What did you do? You can't do anything but follow. I know I've killed, and I've killed a lot. But I can at least say for a fact that I haven't killed needlessly. You've realized that you kill needlessly and you want out, well we're offering you a _fucking chance_ here. If we thought that there was nothing to be found, I would have shot you in the head and we wouldn't be having this conversation. Everyone here is willing to overlook the blood on your hands, the skeletons in the closet. So get your head out of the fucking clouds already." The woman bit her lip and looked over at the archer, fighting with herself on the inside. He had made his mind up, if she didn't accept this proposition he was going to just stab her and be done with it. Natasha cleared her throat and Clint snapped out of his thoughts.

"What kind of benefits can you provide?" A grudging look of respect was on her face and she looked off to the side. He lightened up a bit and answered curtly.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. will provide food and shelter with a salary that will definitely cover all expenses. Identity protection as well as any type of physical protection." She chuckled lightly.

"I don't think I'll need the physical protection." He scoffed in his head. Yeah he knew but he didn't want Fury to bury his ass in work again for not telling her all the terms. God knows that man needed a vacation somewhere with a lot of alcohol. The man offered his hand, glad that this whole thing was over.

"Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D. Tasha." She scoffed at him and shook his hand, a smug look on her face. A finger gently tapped the side of his neck, where the tranquilizer hit home on her.

"You can't call me Tasha until I pay you back for knocking me out earlier, _Love._" He stood motionless in the room as she sauntered out, something similar to delight lining her every step.

Shit.

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Reviews are welcomed!


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